richb
Sensei
Oppo Beta Group - Audioholics Reviewer
Posts: 859
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Post by richb on Aug 3, 2018 10:17:24 GMT -5
Obviously the 7.1.4 pinning software is only related to the home theatre processing. It takes some detective work to split the Dolby spin for cinema Atmos from the Dolby spin for home theatre Atmos. In a lot of the white paper blurb it is difficult at times to tell which Dolby is referring to. I don't believe that this is an accident, it's Dolby attempt at promoting Atmos as being superior to DTS-X (the software for which DTS don't charge BTW). One stand out is that DTS-X has always been 7.1.4, so it benefits Dolby to not mention their 7.1.4 pinning. What is the purpose of 7.1.4 pinning (presumably the .4)? Reduce production costs, reduce decoding processing power, something else? I agree that Dolby marketing obfuscates and blends HT and Cinema Atmos. For example, when initially announced this was Object based technology that differs from channel based when in fact it appears to be beds/pinning that is more like channels with object "sprinkles". - Rich
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Post by lrobertson on Aug 3, 2018 12:04:16 GMT -5
I thought it was to allow for a more lossy 7.1 non Atmos non Dolby HD bed layer with 4 pinned objects just for heights. I imagine UHD has the Dolby HD but I’d assume not for streaming. Basically as bare bones as it gets to stream height channels without bandwidth demand. Real Atmos being Dolby HD bed channels with a corresponding dynamic object bed layer with the xyz data to extrapolate sounds out of the Dolby HD. There is also the dynamic bed layer that groups non object sounds from the Dolby HD into desired speaker groups and arrays which I think is what Gary was referring to when just because you have real Atmos doesn’t mean all 34 speakers in a large system necessarily have duties outside of just object sounds. They have to be included into the extrapolation process. That’s why real Atmos I’m inclined to call it 24.1.10 downmixed to your pre pro size because that’s the number of speakers available for the mix and used for objects. The pinned objects and lack of additional bed channel layers changes that. I do think Gary knows more on this and can elaborate or correct me. I just hope DSU is upgraded to bring more life into the larger systems with lacking mixes.
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Post by liv2teach on Aug 3, 2018 13:47:43 GMT -5
Alright, guess I'm going to pull the trigger on another Atmos processor...Marantz 8802 and I'll circle back around this way in six months and see if the RMC is up, out, and running trouble free. At that time I'll go Marantz 8805, RMC, or whatever else has hit the market in the meantime.... Ciao
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Post by emofrmcgy on Aug 3, 2018 15:25:18 GMT -5
Alright, guess I'm going to pull the trigger on another Atmos processor...Marantz 8802 and I'll circle back around this way in six months and see if the RMC is up, out, and running trouble free. At that time I'll go Marantz 8805, RMC, or whatever else has hit the market in the meantime.... Ciao Attachments:
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Post by davidl81 on Aug 3, 2018 18:12:43 GMT -5
Alright, guess I'm going to pull the trigger on another Atmos processor...Marantz 8802 and I'll circle back around this way in six months and see if the RMC is up, out, and running trouble free. At that time I'll go Marantz 8805, RMC, or whatever else has hit the market in the meantime.... Ciao I don’t know why you would post a sticker like that. The guy wanted the RMC, but his room was ready and he did not have a pre-pro. He asked for temporary alternatives and found one that he could live with for the next few months as he waits for the RMC. Seems very reasonable to me.
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Post by Gary Cook on Aug 3, 2018 18:46:52 GMT -5
I thought it was to allow for a more lossy 7.1 non Atmos non Dolby HD bed layer with 4 pinned objects just for heights. I imagine UHD has the Dolby HD but I’d assume not for streaming. Basically as bare bones as it gets to stream height channels without bandwidth demand. Real Atmos being Dolby HD bed channels with a corresponding dynamic object bed layer with the xyz data to extrapolate sounds out of the Dolby HD. There is also the dynamic bed layer that groups non object sounds from the Dolby HD into desired speaker groups and arrays which I think is what Gary was referring to when just because you have real Atmos doesn’t mean all 34 speakers in a large system necessarily have duties outside of just object sounds. They have to be included into the extrapolation process. That’s why real Atmos I’m inclined to call it 24.1.10 downmixed to your pre pro size because that’s the number of speakers available for the mix and used for objects. The pinned objects and lack of additional bed channel layers changes that. I do think Gary knows more on this and can elaborate or correct me. I just hope DSU is upgraded to bring more life into the larger systems with lacking mixes. Up front, I’m not a sound mixer, I know a couple, plus I have a good friend who does professional theatre installs and sets up automation. Between us we have access to lots of gear and have done a few weekends of testing to determine the best Atmos set up for his house. I have 40 years of electronics experience, including building amps, pre amps and mixers as well as some formal qualifications in that area, plus I read a lot. The problem as I see it is space, space on the disk that seems to have led to 7.1.4 pinning (with Dobly True HD base) especially with 4K HDR or DV video. As well as space in a bandwidth sense which has led to 5.1.x with (Dolby Digital as the base). Both of these “formats” are from Dolby, it’s their software that enables it. Someone wanted it (movie studios ?), they paid for it and Dolby provided it. Over the top of those bases is the metadata that contains the XYZ corordinates for the objects. The 7.1.4 pinning software is capable of being downmixed to 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1.2 etc. Depending on what set up it is in, the processor processes it acordingly. But there is no XYZ metadata for more than 7.1.4, so if the set up has more than that (eg; 9.1.6 etc) then the processor has to extrapolate, matrix, upscale, synthesise etc the additional channels, speakers, arrays etc. Using the Storm processor in a 32 amplifiers and 40+ speakers set up and playing a 7.1.4 disk, only the 7.1.4 channels were used/heard/displayed until we turned on the extrapolation, matrixing, upscaling, synthesising etc. ie; the metadata was only there for 7.1.4. With the same set up and the same movie (Wonder Woman) just swapping to the cinema release hard drive copy, all 32 amplifier/40 speakers were active. Without any extrapolation, matrixing, upscaling, synthesising etc. ie; the metadata was there to enable it. From what Dan has posted the RMC-1, has a pretty decent processor that does a good job of extrapolation, matrixing, upscaling, synthesising etc. But it can't play 9.1.6 etc from a 7.1.4 disc without that because the metadata simply isn't there. Cheers Gary
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Post by jcz06 on Aug 3, 2018 19:26:19 GMT -5
I don’t know why you would post a sticker like that. The guy wanted the RMC, but his room was ready and he did not have a pre-pro. He asked for temporary alternatives and found one that he could live with for the next few months as he waits for the RMC. Seems very reasonable to me. I agree with this 100%, the 8802a is a great processor and honestly will be great for whomever owns it. I am still hopeful the RMC will be here soon and I will slide it in and enjoy it but I think an 8805 would be pretty damn impressive too
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Post by graphic on Aug 3, 2018 21:06:37 GMT -5
I thought it was to allow for a more lossy 7.1 non Atmos non Dolby HD bed layer with 4 pinned objects just for heights. I imagine UHD has the Dolby HD but I’d assume not for streaming. Basically as bare bones as it gets to stream height channels without bandwidth demand. Real Atmos being Dolby HD bed channels with a corresponding dynamic object bed layer with the xyz data to extrapolate sounds out of the Dolby HD. There is also the dynamic bed layer that groups non object sounds from the Dolby HD into desired speaker groups and arrays which I think is what Gary was referring to when just because you have real Atmos doesn’t mean all 34 speakers in a large system necessarily have duties outside of just object sounds. They have to be included into the extrapolation process. That’s why real Atmos I’m inclined to call it 24.1.10 downmixed to your pre pro size because that’s the number of speakers available for the mix and used for objects. The pinned objects and lack of additional bed channel layers changes that. I do think Gary knows more on this and can elaborate or correct me. I just hope DSU is upgraded to bring more life into the larger systems with lacking mixes. Up front, I’m not a sound mixer, I know a couple, plus I have a good friend who does professional theatre installs and sets up automation. Between us we have access to lots of gear and have done a few weekends of testing to determine the best Atmos set up for his house. I have 40 years of electronics experience, including building amps, pre amps and mixers as well as some formal qualifications in that area, plus I read a lot. The problem as I see it is space, space on the disk that seems to have led to 7.1.4 pinning (with Dobly True HD base) especially with 4K HDR or DV video. As well as space in a bandwidth sense which has led to 5.1.x with (Dolby Digital as the base). Both of these “formats” are from Dolby, it’s their software that enables it. Someone wanted it (movie studios ?), they paid for it and Dolby provided it. Over the top of those bases is the metadata that contains the XYZ corordinates for the objects. The 7.1.4 pinning software is capable of being downmixed to 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1.2 etc. Depending on what set up it is in, the processor processes it acordingly. But there is no XYZ metadata for more than 7.1.4, so if the set up has more than that (eg; 9.1.6 etc) then the processor has to extrapolate, matrix, upscale, synthesise etc the additional channels, speakers, arrays etc. Using the Storm processor in a 32 amplifiers and 40+ speakers set up and playing a 7.1.4 disk, only the 7.1.4 channels were used/heard/displayed until we turned on the extrapolation, matrixing, upscaling, synthesising etc. ie; the metadata was only there for 7.1.4. With the same set up and the same movie (Wonder Woman) just swapping to the cinema release hard drive copy, all 32 amplifier/40 speakers were active. Without any extrapolation, matrixing, upscaling, synthesising etc. ie; the metadata was there to enable it. From what Dan has posted the RMC-1, has a pretty decent processor that does a good job of extrapolation, matrixing, upscaling, synthesising etc. But it can't play 9.1.6 etc from a 7.1.4 disc without that because the metadata simply isn't there. Cheers Gary Gary, this is your best and clearest explanation / discussion of this topic!
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Post by cwt on Aug 4, 2018 3:00:04 GMT -5
What is the purpose of 7.1.4 pinning (presumably the .4)? Reduce production costs, reduce decoding processing power, something else? Its an effort to homogenise downloaded and disc based sources ie economies of scale is the way I see it as has been said Rich . Its also easier to pin objects than to give them characteristics like size and steering which atmos can impart . As to disc capacity there is always the opportunity for the mixer to allocate less bandwidth to the video on a disc than the audio which is a much smaller percentage in comparison . At least I hope they take this attitude ; HEVC compression does a good job already Some extra metadata is negligible ; when I shrink a m2ts file its very hard to pick a decrease in picture quality In the positive ledger dolby are supporting smaller studios with production suite equipment that may not be limited to 7.1.4 www.mixonline.com/technology/dolby-atmos-the-business-and-the-technology
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Post by lrobertson on Aug 4, 2018 7:59:17 GMT -5
I read they only installed one small 7.1.4 mixing studio out of a dozen or so a while back on AVS so that should be a sign we’re not destined to be limited to it I would hope. Gary I’ve always assumed pinned objects meant that the xyz is static for 4 objects rather than dynamic. Wouldn’t the system just ignore 2 if say it was a 7.1.2 because they are at a irrelevant xyz location? I always assumed if it was dynamic xyz information there shouldn’t be a limit to how many speakers play a part in playback because that’s computed in the pre pro I thought. So four dynamic objects would still be picked up by any and all of potential height speakers that the xyz data runs into.
CWT: interesting article
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Post by Gary Cook on Aug 4, 2018 18:40:23 GMT -5
What is the purpose of 7.1.4 pinning (presumably the .4)? Reduce production costs, reduce decoding processing power, something else? Its an effort to homogenise downloaded and disc based sources ie economies of scale is the way I see it as has been said Rich . Its also easier to pin objects than to give them characteristics like size and steering which atmos can impart . As to disc capacity there is always the opportunity for the mixer to allocate less bandwidth to the video on a disc than the audio which is a much smaller percentage in comparison . At least I hope they take this attitude ; HEVC compression does a good job already Some extra metadata is negligible ; when I shrink a m2ts file its very hard to pick a decrease in picture quality In the positive ledger dolby are supporting smaller studios with production suite equipment that may not be limited to 7.1.4 www.mixonline.com/technology/dolby-atmos-the-business-and-the-technologyThe only purpose that I can see for 7.1.4 pinning is space. It's the same reason why Dolby came out with Atmos over 5.1 Dolby Digital, space (bandwidth). For the 4K movies that I have the extras are on a separate disk, why if not for space reasons? Realistically what is the ratio of 4K TV's to Atmos sound systems? What about to the number of Atmos systems more than 7.1.4? 1,000,00 to 1? 10,000,000 to 1? More like 100,000,000 to 1? So why on earth would a movie studio choose to reduce its video quality for millions of viewers just to have marginally better Atmos for 1 listener? It makes no sense, the installed base of 4K TV's will always win over niche audio every time. Why risk alienating millions of 4K viewers just to satisfy a handful of "more than 7.1.4 Atmos systems" owners? The pinning process is an additional step in creating the home theatre version, so there is no economy for the movie studios in regards to how much the sound mixer is paid. The is no "economy of scale" in an additional mixing step, the sound mixer I know told me that he doesn't get paid less for a 7.1.4 pinned mix. So why do it? I believe that it's space limitations, but maybe the processor/AVR manufacturers have had some influence. They don't want people holding off on buying their 7.1.4 hardware, waiting for 9.1.6 hardware to become available. So a disk that says "Atmos 7.1.4" on it may well lead them to think that that's all they need. Not for just that particular movie but all movies in the future. There's not a lot of processors that go past 7.1.4 currently available, and they need to market and sell what they can make. It is also worth keeping in mind the that competing technology DTS-X ( for which the rendering software is available for free from DTS) has always been 7.1.4. That also raises the same question, why did DTS stop at 7.1.4? Is it a limitation of the software, not that I can tell. So why if it isn't for either space (on the disk) or equipment (for home theatres) availability that says anything more than 7.1.4 has a minuscule audience, so why bother? For "smaller studios" Atmos Dolby has to price compete with DTS-X, it's free, so Dolby's business model of charging licence fees is being severally tested. Dolby can't suddenly make Atmos rendering software free of licence fees, all of the studios/mixers that have already paid for it would be up in arms. So they offer size discounts, limitations on the number of renderings for a reduce price (ie; smaller studios). Another view, Dolby had a substantial marketing advantage with Atmos over DTS-X, Atmos had an unlimited format (5.1.2, 7.1.4, 9.1.6, 21.1.12 etc) whereas their main (only?) competitor DTS-X had a top limit of 7.1.4. Why would they give up that huge marketing advantage by developing and releasing 7.1.4 pinning software? There had to be some very compelling reason for that. There's only 2 possibilities that I see, pressure from movie studios and/or AVR/processor manufacturers. The next question, obviously, is why did the movie studios and/or AVR/processor manufacturers push Dolby give up their main marketing advantage? Plainly it's not cost, so what is left, space, hardware availability, something else? With any Atmos discussion there seems to be a lot of hang up in using the exact terminology, so for clarification there is no limitation on the number of "loudspeakers" that Atmos will support. The premium theatre is Sydney has over 100 "loudspeakers", (132 I believe) they are simply arranged in arrays with multiple speakers in each array. It's hard to describe because if we use "channels" the Atmos language enforcers get all uppity ("there's no channels, Atmos is objects"), so I often use the term "amplifier channels", to avoid the nit picking. eg; the theatre has 34 amplifier channels (ie; 21.1.12) with multiple speakers/arrays connected to each amplifier channel. Of course there can be multiple amplifiers attached to each amplifier channel, just to add to the confusion. Cheers Gary
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Post by socketman on Aug 4, 2018 18:48:01 GMT -5
I cant remember where we are at with all this Gary but are any of these discs from the USA or are they all region B. I read a magazine from England and they are region B and there is all kinds of griping about the discs that they get that dont even have atmos on BD only on 4K .
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Post by Gary Cook on Aug 4, 2018 18:56:57 GMT -5
I read they only installed one small 7.1.4 mixing studio out of a dozen or so a while back on AVS so that should be a sign we’re not destined to be limited to it I would hope. Gary I’ve always assumed pinned objects meant that the xyz is static for 4 objects rather than dynamic. Wouldn’t the system just ignore 2 if say it was a 7.1.2 because they are at a irrelevant xyz location? I always assumed if it was dynamic xyz information there shouldn’t be a limit to how many speakers play a part in playback because that’s computed in the pre pro I thought. So four dynamic objects would still be picked up by any and all of potential height speakers that the xyz data runs into. From what I have heard during a few weekends of testing and playing around, if we tell the processor that there is only 2 ceiling speakers it down mixes the 4 (from the disk) to suite the 2 speakers. My friend's set up is 5.1.2 which suites his space, it's a standard Dolby layout except that we found having the 2 ceiling speakers along the room worked better than having them across the room. So what we have did was to have the processor (a Yamaha CX-A5110) set to recognise 5.1.4 and then wire the 4 ceiling speaker outputs to suite the along the room orientation. If we had set it at 5.1.2 the processor assumes the across the room orientation, we tested it and down mixing 4 to 2 worked much better. Just to confuse the issue, that was for testing, he now has 2 x dual driver ceiling speakers so it is in fact wired 5.1.4. Just that the across the room locations are together in one speaker with 2 drivers. Both of the sound mixers that I know in Australia have 7.1.4 HT pinning software, one of them did Thor Ragnarok. Of course they can do unpinned HT sound tracks as well as full cinema mixes. They paid the full Dolby price obviously. So they wouldn't be counted in the "small 7.1.4 mixing studio" numbers. As a result the "only one" to me statistic is pretty much irrelevant, there's lot more than one mixer out there doing 7.1.4 pinning. Cheers Gary
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Post by Gary Cook on Aug 4, 2018 19:08:13 GMT -5
I cant remember where we are at with all this Gary but are any of these discs from the USA or are they all region B. I read a magazine from England and they are region B and there is all kinds of griping about the discs that they get that dont even have atmos on BD only on 4K . Mine are labelled "Region B" or non region specific, as my BD player (Sony X800) is region locked. Asa result I don't have any Region A. We do have plenty of 2K BD's with Atmos sound tracks, although the current releases are mostly 4K Atmos with the occasional 4K DTS-X. There are still a lot of 4K Dolby TrueHD or DTS HDMA releases, so not everything is Atmos or DTSX by a long way. I haven't found any differences between Region B and Region A so far, the formats have all been the same. Albeit that's not every movie, just the ones that I have looked at. In comparison to the US our market is around 1/15th the size so it's not unusual for us to only get some of the options. But I haven't seen any where we don't get the top level option, we just miss out on some of the mid range options. So it wouldn't surprise me if we don't get as many 2K BD's with Atmos as the US does. For example 3D is pretty much dead here, so we don't get a lot of 3D releases. But I really don't notice because I only buy 4K and have done for well over a year. Cheers Gary
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Post by socketman on Aug 4, 2018 20:26:35 GMT -5
i just read that Blade Runner 2049 for instance was distributed by Warner in the States and Sony in the UK and that they are entirely different as far as the sound track is concerned. I am just wondering if Region B is getting screwed some way . I know others on AVS have talked about this phenomenon but i dont know where they hail from so if they are US based i may be blowing smoke out my AZZ. Surely to god someone in the know can clarify this nonsense once and for all. Personally i could could give a Flyin u know what about the extras etc ,i back up my movies and i eliminate all that fluff, there is nothing i care less about than the extra's on a movie . Pheww i feel better now
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Post by Gary Cook on Aug 4, 2018 21:03:23 GMT -5
i just read that Blade Runner 2049 for instance was distributed by Warner in the States and Sony in the UK and that they are entirely different as far as the sound track is concerned. I am just wondering if Region B is getting screwed some way . I know others on AVS have talked about this phenomenon but i dont know where they hail from so if they are US based i may be blowing smoke out my AZZ. Surely to god someone in the know can clarify this nonsense once and for all. Personally i could could give a Flyin u know what about the extras etc ,i back up my movies and i eliminate all that fluff, there is nothing i care less about than the extra's on a movie . Pheww i feel better now My copy of Blade Runner 2049; I can't tell who the distributor is, it has Alcon Entertainment, Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures, Scott Free, Universal Pictures and Sony Pictures logos on it. The English language track has 4K HDR, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, DTS HDMA 5.1 and Dolby True HD 7.1. The non English language tracks are DTS HDMA 5.1 only. There are no special features on the 4K disk. Also included in the box is a blu ray disk (main feature + special features) and the English language track is DTS HDMA 5.1 only. FWIW there are not as many non English language tracks on the blu ray version. I'm not sure what is "entirely different" in the sounds tracks, but on my version there are plenty of options. Plus it doesn't state "Dolby Atmos 7.1.4" just "Dolby Atmos" which can mean it is in fact 7.1.4 pinned and it just doesn't state it, or it's not pinned at all. With my gear I can't tell. If I get access the Storm again (unlikely) I'll most definitely try it out. Cheers Gary
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Post by socketman on Aug 4, 2018 21:49:51 GMT -5
Well , i took this from a magazine in response to a reader who wrote in ,so the fact your region B states all those studio's i have no idea whats going on. Maybe they think that the bulk of the general public will only deploy 7.1.2 or 7.1.4 . If they can extrapolate the extra information for 9.1.6 surely they can provide the meta data for the same 9.1.6 . Would the extra info be any better if it was done with metadata rather than being synthesized.
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Post by pedrocols on Aug 4, 2018 21:59:12 GMT -5
Alright, guess I'm going to pull the trigger on another Atmos processor...Marantz 8802 and I'll circle back around this way in six months and see if the RMC is up, out, and running trouble free. At that time I'll go Marantz 8805, RMC, or whatever else has hit the market in the meantime.... Ciao Come back in two years to be safer. That is what I am going to do based on the XMC-1 released history.
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Post by Gary Cook on Aug 4, 2018 22:33:38 GMT -5
Well , i took this from a magazine in response to a reader who wrote in ,so the fact your region B states all those studio's i have no idea whats going on. Maybe they think that the bulk of the general public will only deploy 7.1.2 or 7.1.4 . If they can extrapolate the extra information for 9.1.6 surely they can provide the meta data for the same 9.1.6 . Would the extra info be any better if it was done with metadata rather than being synthesized. Better, definitely yes, I’ve heard it. There are limits to what a processor can extrapolate, from the information it has, to the additional channels. Whereas a full set of metadata reproduces exactly what the sound mixer intended. The object locations are precisely where they are supposed to be. With extrapolation the processor “guesses” the locations based on pre programmed parameters, frequency, volume, transience etc. It’s like Dolby Pro Logic for the additional channels, albeit with claimed better algorithms. As well as indistinct locations I also noticed a loss of frequency response (narrowing) from the additional channels which maybe an artifact of the signal splitting, with frequency being one of the logic parameters. We should keep in mind that Dolby have officially stated that they won’t be supporting any third party software that proports to add channels to what is on an Atmos encoded disk. So a number of the better overlays (extrapolaters) won’t be available. How that relates to what Dan posted about the RMC-1 post Atmos processing is yet to be revealed. Cheers Gary
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Post by socketman on Aug 5, 2018 0:22:38 GMT -5
So my suspicion is that it is just very labour intensive and not worth the hassle and expense to provide the extra metadata for a few people. I highly doubt metadata in and of itself consumes much space.
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